Chapter 48. Pyramid (1)
The day Diego and Chloe departed for the Berber Kingdom to handle the cattle-feed beet business.
I went to the harbor to see them off.
“If things become impossible, don’t force it. Just come back safely.”
“Understood, my lord. Still, I’ll do my best to secure the royal patent.”
The capital of the Berber Kingdom was far away.
I had given them two months.
That sounded generous, but meeting a king in any country took time.
Bribes were often needed just to move through the process, so I had also given Chloe a bag of gold coins.
Whatever happens, just come back safely.
I watched the Benedikta sail farther and farther away.
I had not said those words aloud during the farewell.
* * *
Just as I was preparing to return to the lord’s residence, Chief of Civil Affairs Pascal spotted someone he knew in the harbor.
He greeted a foreign merchant.
Curious, I walked over.
Pascal held a high administrative position, but he was not especially sociable.
Who had managed to become friendly with him?
“Pascal, introduce that merchant.”
“Ah, my lord. He is a merchant from Alexandria on the Southern Continent. He visits Marcel frequently, so he’s a regular customer.”
I offered the merchant my hand.
“I am the lord of this land. What goods do you deal in?”
“Oh my, what an honor. I buy ‘Eric-Diarrhea’ medicine and deliver it to plantation owners in Alexandria. I stop by Catalonia along the way as well.”
I had not heard that name for some time, so I thought I had stopped caring.
Apparently not.
People were still calling the antidiarrheal medicine ‘Eric-Diarrhea.’
Suppressing my irritation, I asked how he became close with Pascal.
“How did you become acquainted with Pascal?”
“He helped mediate with the harbor officials who were giving outsiders a hard time. Thanks to him, I was able to unload my cargo much faster.”
There was territorial gatekeeping everywhere.
Even on Earth in the twenty-first century.
You either greased palms, built connections, or flattered people.
Naturally, I was trying to eliminate that kind of behavior here.
The merchant continued talking about how important speed was for trading ships.
The faster a ship could enter, unload, reload, and leave, the more profit its owner made.
Then he complained about the lack of a functioning lighthouse.
What the hell was he talking about?
We did not have a lighthouse.
“Point to the lighthouse you mean.”
“Yes. That one over there.”
The merchant pointed toward the massive ruin at the edge of the harbor.
The pyramid.
“That is a lighthouse?”
“It looks exactly like the lighthouse in Alexandria. Why don’t you turn it on? If you activated that thing, even more merchants would come here.”
He sounded almost resentful.
Pascal stopped him, and only then did the merchant realize how rudely he had spoken to a lord.
“Oh my, forgive me, my lord. I forgot my place.”
“It’s fine. Tell me more about the lighthouse in Alexandria.”
“Yes, yes. At the top of that lighthouse is a gigantic glowing crystal... Huh? I don’t see a crystal on yours. Anyway, the crystal shines brightly over the sea at night.”
According to the merchant, the Alexandria lighthouse had a giant crystal that automatically emitted light after sunset.
It consumed mana, so operating it cost a lot of money.
He also gave me far too much information about how the lighthouse had helped Alexandria become a gigantic trading port.
“It seems our lighthouse is broken. I’ll try to repair it, so don’t be too disappointed.”
“Oh, thank you, my lord!”
The merchant repeatedly bowed before leaving.
Pascal approached me.
“My lord, if that really is a lighthouse, someone here should know about it. I’ll bring an official who has worked at the harbor for a long time.”
“The harbor administrator has served the longest. Bring him.”
Pascal ran off and returned with an old man.
The man had spent his entire life working at the harbor and was over eighty.
He was out of breath from hurrying, but I was too curious to wait.
“They say that pyramid is a lighthouse. Tell me anything you know.”
“Yes, my lord. There was no lighthouse there even when I was a child. This is the first time I have heard anyone call it one. Everyone has always believed it was the tomb of an ancient king. People avoid it because they fear being cursed.”
If an eighty-year-old man did not know, probably no one in Marcel knew.
The city itself had existed for less than a hundred years.
My great-grandfather had founded and developed it only three generations before me.
The pyramid had probably been abandoned from the beginning because no one understood what it was.
It was simply too massive to destroy.
Pascal offered his opinion.
“Alexandria has been a great city since ancient times, so they preserved knowledge of its purpose. Marcel is a newer city, so no one here knew what it was.”
“But merchants who visited Alexandria should have known. Why are we only hearing this now?”
“Like that merchant said, maybe because the giant crystal was missing, they simply assumed it was something else.”
Plausible, but not convincing.
People here commonly used Southern Continent elves as slaves, so prejudice against Southern peoples was widespread.
Perhaps merchants from the Southern Continent had tried to explain before, only to be ignored.
Anyway, there was a possibility this truly was a lighthouse.
We needed to enter the pyramid and investigate.
“Pascal, bring Witch Winnie and the knight order to the pyramid. We’re going inside.”
“Are you worried it might be dangerous?”
“Yes. If it really is a tomb and has guardians, that could become troublesome.”
I could have entered alone.
However, if I was injured, the territory would suffer.
I had too many responsibilities.
I was not some movie hero.
Until I became stronger, solo action was forbidden.
A short while later, I met Witch Winnie and Knight Commander Axel in front of the pyramid and explained the plan.
“Winnie, we need to locate the entrance. Can you use detection magic?”
“I don’t know any. But I can try something else.”
Winnie removed several reagents and sheets of paper from her bag.
She drew geometric patterns on the paper, applied a reagent, and spoke a trigger phrase.
